A new Tuesday, and a new story from our most successful series, the #TshirtTuesday! This time around we’re sharing with you a really cool, urban proposal of personalised T-shirts from New Zealand: Ragged Rat!
Strath Mckenzie created the brand from his bedroom inspired by the nightlife and sub culture of university students in Canterbury – in other words, wild parties and drunken lads! The bold and colourful designs feature some psychedelic and street elements with a slight Asian influence. They will surely catch your eye!
I hope you enjoy our newest #TshirtTuesday!
Interviewing Strath, founder of Ragged Rat
Tell us about you, what’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do?
I’m Strath Mckenzie, 19, from the glorious kingdom of New Zealand. I study Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Canterbury and I come as 2 halves.
1) I love the outdoors, whether it is surfing at the beach, tramping up the mountains or skateboarding down the hills. Although my sickly white face may not seem like it, I’m pretty keen on the ol’ sun.
2) I’m a lazy couch potato who slouches around looking terrible from dawn to dusk, 10/10 will stay in bed till 1 am. Comfort foods such as chicken nuggets, steak and cheese pies and pizza are my weapon of choice when it comes to not being bothered to cook.
What about your brand? What’s its name? What makes it unique?
Ragged Rat is an embodiment of the student lifestyle in New Zealand, where it is filled with many messy, drunken, frothing nights. I have just started it and hopefully, it will grow a little bigger than the sample T-shirt that I’ve ordered. The predominant animal figure in the branding, the ‘rat’, came from one of my flatmates who I kindly call Rat Boy. Working on the student lifestyle theme, the brand is based around the idea of filthiness and overall lack of perfection, or to sum it up into a basic concept, roughness.
If it were a person, what would he/she be like?
Ragged Rat would be a feral child who may be a mild alcoholic, drink of choice would either be whisky or a cheeky bourbon and coke. The daily routine will include binge watching every episode of Game of Thrones while sitting on the couch in grey sweatpants and a grey hoodie (the unbeatable and elegant “grey suit”).
Simplicity is key, describe your brand in three words:
Rough, life, laziness
For how long have you been selling T-shirts? Any remarkable story you learnt on the way? Any advice for beginners?
To be honest I can’t really give any stories as I literally started the brand this morning. But the idea started a while ago when I was playing around and started making designs. From there I have become very interested in the ability to spread my ideas and designs through clothing as the medium. This doesn’t contain the basic nature of the designs to a room but rather lets them see daylight.
A key question, why should people be interested in your brand?
It is a simple brand with unusual designs. It may be a little rough around the edges with average designs and below average marketing skills, but there are some pretty buzzy designs in the mix.
Are you on Social Media? Where can we find you?
Yes! Find me on Tumblr and Facebook
Brilliant! Nice talking to you! Before you go, let’s shoot some quick questions!
- Dogs or cats: Dogs because they are all over adorable, where cats are little psycho demons with fur
- Apple or PC: PC, all over more customisable I reckon
- Football or basketball: Football. Just a random choice here, I’m not overly bothered
- Coffee or tea: Coffee is hella good, it tastes great while keeping my barely moving corpse alive in the morning.
- Beach or forest: Beach! It has surfing and the sun, what’s the competition?
- A colour: Payne’s Grey. I absolutely love Payne’s grey, it’s great for blending while painting and creates a fantastic expression when applied roughly.
- A place: My bed. Because it is where I spend half of my life, I’m kind of obliged to love it.
- A quote: “It looks slightly damp outside today so I won’t go to lectures” – The motivated and educationally focussed me
Ragged Rat – Featured Garments
Indigo blue Hoodie
Not your usual rat tee
Cat tail Black crop
Big Bird
Basic Rat Tee Black
The Fish and The Cannibal Snail
The Fish and The Cannibal Snail
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Printsome is a t-shirt printing agency offering T-shirt printing Cardiff and caps and T-shirt printing Dundee, as well as everywhere else in between. For a quick quote or even some advice on personalised clothing, get in touch!
